Al Qaeda attacks Church in Iraq, many die

Bagdad : More than 27 people were killed as the Iraqi security forces stormed a Catholic church in central Baghdad on Sunday evening to free hundreds of hostages being held by gunmen there, security sources said on Monday.

The gunmen had been demanding release of al Qaeda prisoners.

The US military said between seven and 10 hostages and seven members of the Iraqi security forces, as well as five to seven attackers, were killed in the rescue operation. But the the casualty could be higher than the figures available on Monday morning as search for bodies was still going on, they said.

Witnesses reported seeing many bodies inside the church after the gunmen,wearing suicide vests, threw grenades or blew themselves up as Iraqi forces stormed the building.

The insurgents laid siege to one of Baghdad’s biggest churches as more than 100 parishioners attended Sunday mass in the central district near the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to embassies and the Iraqi Government.

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Bloom, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said three militants detonated suicide vests as Iraq forces entered the church, Geo tv quoted him as saying.

He said a total of 120 hostages were held by the attackers, adding that 30 people were wounded.

Colonel Kadhim Basheer Saleh, an Iraqi civil defence spokesman, said 15 civilians, four policemen and eight attackers were killed.

Al Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack on “the dirty place of the infidel which Iraqi Christians have long used as a base to fight Islam”.

It said in a statement posted on a radical websites that it was an action against the Christian church in Egypt.

Iraqi security officials said they had been warned of possible attacks against large gatherings, especially churches.

“We expect attacks will continue and increase in the coming days,” said Lieutenant General Hussein Kamal, Iraq’s Deputy Interior Minister.

As Sunday’s operation unfolded, military helicopters flew low overhead and gunfire rang out through the densely populated residential area.

Streets around the Assyrian Catholic church were quickly cordoned off.

A woman who was held hostage in the Our Lady of Salvation Church said there were many bodies inside.

“While I was trying to find my way out, in the dark, I walked over bodies,” she said, asking not to be identified. “There are many bodies there.”

A police source said the attackers demanded release of al Qaeda prisoners, including the widow of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the former head of the Islamic State of Iraq, who was killed in April.

In a separate call to al-Baghdadiya television station, a man who claimed to be one of the attackers said the group also wanted al Qaeda prisoners released in Egypt.

Our Lady of Salvation, one of Baghdad’s largest churches, was one of five churches in Baghdad and Mosul hit in coordinated attacks in August 2004 in which 12 people were killed.

Christians number about a 1.5 million out of a total Iraqi population of about 23 million, the vast majority of them Muslims.

Christian denominations include Chaldeans, Copts, Roman and Melkite Catholics, Maronites and Greek Orthodox.

The local TV station, al-Baghdadiya, said it had received a phone call from someone claiming to be one of the attackers, who said they were from the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni militant umbrella group to which al-Qaeda in Iraq belongs.

Reports said the attackers were not Iraqis, but foreign Arabs.

The raid came two days after a suicide attack on a cafe in Diyala province left 21 people dead.

Police said a group of armed men began by attacking the Iraq Stock Exchange building, and then took over the Catholic church just across the road.